I thought the ice would take me that night. My spear had snapped against the hide of a Wartusk, and I was bleeding too freely to stand. The storm had come down sudden from the cliffs — snow so thick I could not see my own hands. Alone, weaponless, the wind gnawed at me like wolves.
Then the ground began to tremble. At first, I thought Helheim itself had come for me. Out of the white loomed a shape vast as a cliff-face, tusks curling like the roots of an ancient tree. A Hippotherium.
I had heard the elders speak of them, half in reverence, half in fear. Sacred beasts, too proud to suffer hunters, too fierce to tame. Yet it did not strike. It stood over me, a wall of steaming breath and shaggy hide, its eyes like coals in the blizzard.
The Wartusk circled back for the kill. Before I could crawl away, the Hippotherium thundered forward. One sweep of its tusks sent the beast sprawling, bones shattering under its weight. The snow fell silent but for my own ragged breath.
The creature lingered only long enough to meet my gaze. In those eyes I saw not pity, but judgment. It left me there, half-dead and trembling, yet spared. When the storm cleared, I crawled home alive.
Now I know why we call them guardians. Not because they fight for us, but because they choose who among us is worthy to see another dawn.